As Fox News’ Sean Hannity goes on vacation, seven companies have asked to pull their ads.
Fox News may be seeing a repeat of advertiser backlash that eventually drove out its former top anchor, Bill O’Reilly.
At least seven advertisers — Cars.com, Leesa Sleep, Casper, USAA, Peloton, the Crowne Plaza hotel chain and doorbell company Ring — have reportedly asked to be pulled from Sean Hannity’s prime-time program.
The defections are in response to the host’s promoting a right-wing theory that Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer, was slain after providing party emails to WikiLeaks.
“We don’t have the ability to influence content at the time we make our advertising purchase,” Cars. com said. “In this case, we’ve been watching closely and have recently made the decision to pull our advertising from Hannity.”
A representative of Fox News would not comment on the pullout by advertisers and said Hannity is off the rest of the week on a scheduled vacation.
“Like the rest of the country, Sean Hannity is taking a vacation around Memorial Day weekend and will be back on Tuesday,” a spokesperson for Fox News said. “Those who suggest otherwise are going to look foolish.”
In March, advertisers started dropping out of “The O’Reilly Factor” amid reports that O’Reilly and Fox News had paid $13 million in to settle claims of sexual harassment and verbal abuse by the primetime star. By early April, every major advertiser was off the program.
O’Reilly left for vacation after his April 11 broadcast but was never seen on Fox News Channel again. He was fired April 19, with the company paying off his $25 million-a-year contract.
The departure of O’Reilly has put cracks in the ratings dominance of the top-rated cable news channel. Last week, Fox News finished behind CNN and MSNBC in the 25-to-54 age group most coveted by advertisers for the first time since 2008.
Hannity has always been the most outspoken conservative voice on Fox News and as a commentator does not have to adhere to the journalistic rigors of correspondents and news anchors on the channel. But after Fox News retracted the story, he was forced to back off of his speculation about Rich, who was killed on the streets of Washington, D.C., in what police have said was a botched robbery.
Hannity insists that it was his decision to stop discussing the theory that Rich’s death was related to the leaking of DNC emails to WikiLeaks, which U.S. intelligence agencies have instead said was the work of Russia-backed hackers. He said on his program Tuesday that he had spoken to Rich’s brother and would no longer discuss the matter out of respect for the family.
But the talk within Fox News is that Hannity was asked to back off the matter, which comes at a delicate time when Fox News parent 21st Century Fox is attempting to get British regulators to approve its acquisition of European pay TV giant Sky.